


Snapshots

by Taabe



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 01:19:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6449737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taabe/pseuds/Taabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the beginning of things, there are times Bitty doesn't want to forget. ... That moment when someone sees you on your own ground for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots

Things I want to remember.

Sitting on the plane that night, writing texts I couldn't send. Reading yours over with my head against the window and the lights spread out below along the Potomac. The one you sent as we were waiting to taxi in to the gate, _are you on the ground yet? Tell me you're safe._ As though it couldn't be real to be this happy and this scared together — as though something would have to go wrong before the car pulled into my driveway.

Slipping out of the house at night because yes, Coach still technically sets a curfew even though we both pretend it doesn't matter when I'm months away from legal drinking age. But my room's a wall away from theirs, and I needed you. I could not have physically stopped myself touching your number on the screen. Walking down our street and around the subdivision in the rough grass on the shoulder, not knowing where I was going, talking to you and not talking, my hand sweating on the case.

*

In camp. Sitting in the dining hall in the dark, the one building where I can plug in a phone, with the dugout canoe a long shadow in the rafters over my head. It’s handmade by a fisherman in the barrier islands. Wrapped around a table bench at I-have-no-idea-what-time, my elbows on the table propping my head up, and we were both not talking — and laughing because we weren't talking, but still we didn't know what to say — and I told you I would rather be there not talking with you than anything, anywhere else. And you said _I know._

*

The sing-a-long on Saturday nights — the big end-of-the-week hoohaw I told you I really love, even though everyone's supposed to think it's cornier than spoonbread, because all these supposedly hard-edged kids sit around the fire singing _Kumbaya_ and telling each other it's because they're supposed to. You will not believe what _He's Got the Whole World in His Hands_ did to me that first night. Beet red, trying to casually cross my knees, joining in the choruses at top volume, hoping in the firelight no one would see a thing — not caring for myself but for them. There are some conversations you don't want to have with 13-year-old girls when you can't tell them … anything that matters. Lord, I wanted your hands.

*

And the morning I was still awake at 3:30 a.m. and went out for a run around the lake. With water splashed on my shirt I could almost pretend the air felt cool. The pine needles let out a sweet resin scent sliding under my feet, and I could feel you there. It felt good, stretching my stride when the sky was lightening. The sun touched down like melted butter, and it's so quiet I swear I could hear the water rippling against the sunken log on the shore. I took a breather to sit on it with my feet in the water and text you. _Out running. You're not here to run me against the boards. So._

Rocking on my feet. Pushing myself until I couldn't think. Finishing uphill on a wind sprint. Walking it out down a wood road, over sandy tree roots along the shore and on the scrape of beach. 

By then people might have begun to hit the showers, so I sluiced my head in the lake. And when I came up for air, my shirt half soaked, there was one of my kids with her phone up saying _hey, Mr. Bittle._ I told her to send me the picture and I'd share it with my mama, gentle back-peddling being part of the job. 

Sitting on the dock, making sure my phone was dry, I got your answer, the one that would evolve into our first homemade acronym. _God I would be kissing you now._ I sent the photo to you. Early light, water beading on my forehead, sunburn and all. I hoped you'd send one of you — like I don't flip through our selfies in the dining hall line — but you sent me … you sent me instead, standing side on to the Faber windows, the light an intense sunrise glow. You wrote _I can see your halo._

_When did you — I don't remember you taking that._

_You thought I had a *photography* obsession._

_Crying now._

_#GIWS …_

The explanation led us to MPIAI (#moreproofImanidiot) … and I missed breakfast.

*

Conversations I want to keep forever. We’re Skyping — I was outside the cabin with the fireflies and the air thick with honeysuckle. You turned your phone to show me the city lights out your window, and I realized you’re sitting in the kitchen. On the floor. With your back against the oven.

We got off the phone and you texted _what I’m listening to_ — a link to a Great Big Sea vid. It started with a figure skater, a photo on the wall blending into a man spinning … and halfway through a hockey player hoisted the Stanley cup. 

_I'm alive — I got one shot and I’m taking it to you_  
_I’m alive — I’ve come to realize not a moment too soon_  
_This is my one small step_  
_This is my walk on the moon_

I sat sat on the boards with the rough, dry post againt my forehead, playing it on repeat and waiting for the songbirds to start up before it got light. 

Half the time it scared me. The way a few words from you could make me shiver. Sometimes I had to put the phone down. The world turned inside out before I could breathe, and I had nothing to compare to. No one to talk to here. Not even a stove. By now my marshmellow roasting is a finely honed technique. And some nights in the fringe of brush by the fire pit, looking for the right stick to peel, I’d feel my hands sticky with sap, sharpening a twig end with my jack-nife, and it all seemed unreal. They touched your shirt for so little time. What I ached with was too big to fit into one Southern boy and a night sky.

*

Home seemed even more unreal, like an old shirt you’ve grown out of. I hardly remember getting ready for the party, except I almost burned two batches of brownies, and the second time my mama put her hand on my forehead like she was checking my temperature. When you drove up I’d been watching the driveway out the kitchen window ever since you told me you were south of Richmond. I was out the door. The sun struck down. All the questions in the last weeks colliding, all the dark sides of the sleepless nights, the _what is he doing and what am I doing and what is this going to be?_ But you were there, reaching for your bag and turning to me under cover of the car, and it was you, human-sized, close enough to touch, turning the heat of the day into a nova.

You slung up a half gallon of maple syrup and asked me for pancakes for breakfast in a voice so bare I hardly recognized it. And for the second time in my life, all I could say was “… ok.”

*

There were hellos and putting down of bags. 

We were standing in the living room, and I was watching you look around. I was noticing the way the carpet smelled like wet dog and the coffee table looked plasticky and the rings in the varnish because Coach won't use coasters with beer cans. And what you said was, “How about your skating photos?”

I said, “My mama has one upstairs.” 

You said, “Can I see?”

Then we're standing on her side of the bed, against the wall, where she has that silver frame, but you have to get up close to see it angled there by the clock radio, and you're standing against me, your chest firm against my back, and you reached around me to pick it up in both hands. So we're both looking down into my 15-year-old face as I turn in mid-air. It's from the long program that won me Juniors.

I can hear the music. Adam Lambert. “Whataya want from me.” Lord, I _was_ that song, that year. It’s embedded in the feel and smell and sound of that time, warm-up music, Katya’s voice, gut-churning rides in the car, late nights coming out of the air-conditioned locker room into hot, wet air and wondering what Coach and my mama wouldn’t say, with my phone already primed to fill in the blanks. I’ve started to forget how utterly alone — how many nights I stayed up listening to Adam when he and that song came out.

_“… I think_  
_you could save my life_  
_just don’t give up_  
_I’m working it out_  
_please don’t give in …”_

When I look at that photo I can feel that night and that spin. The stillness when you’re waiting for the music to wind up. You focus on those opening bars, because when you’re out there, it’s just you in everyone’s eyes. But the beat kicks in. The rush overtakes the knot in your gut, the feeling you came for — the skimming pulse, leaning into the music, and the sweet lift when you knew the landing would be right. The last slow coast with my forehead against the ice and the music fading down, and the silence in the crowd for a full held breath before anyone brought their hands together, and the swelling like summer rain coming, slow and building and flooding down the roof — and I was arched, poised, still, soaked in it — and I knew I’d given all I had.

I don’t come in here much.

You wrapped one arm around me. Then you put the frame down to wrap the other one, and I felt your fingers on my cheek, and we stood there, my head bowed into your arm, for the few moments it took my mama to call up the stairs and ask where we were.

*

By dusk the party’s moving from the air conditioning to the back yard. The beer’s already running low in the ice tubs. My uncle was warming up to bring the conversation around to me. _He’s going to say something about my hair. Because he always does. Damn it to a fricaseed tamari-marinated hell._ He’s guessing he’s got you to thank for getting me on the hockey team — not that he knows the half of it. And here it comes. 

“At least it's not that pansy-ass shit with the spangles on your shirt.”

“Yes, sir.”

I was more interested in how the hamburgers were cooking. When you ask me for rare, you get rare around here. But I knew the way your face closed down. Your take-down-the-asshole-reporter look. I knew your press-release voice too.

“His speed and control is invaluable in the rink.”

“Man, you shoulda seen him!”

He went into a hair flipping pirouette routine to laughter. I asked you if you wanted melted cheese on yours. You looked ready to split granite with your teeth. You stepped closer to me, looking at the grill, close enough so I could say “just roll with it” under my breath. 

We’re moving on to the part of the program when they all try to get me a girl. I was playing straight man and sliding burgers onto buns until the assistant coach from our old high school said “… got enough at that camp of yours.”

The plate lurched in my hands as I faced him.

“It’s my job, sir. You know I wouldn’t —“ _I respect those kids._ I didn’t realize at first I’ve said that aloud. I was thinking of the ones I’ve met in the last two weeks. All they’ve been through. The girl with the short, crisp-dyed hair who wears a colossal sweatshirt even in stick-to-your-chair heat, and the neck is stretched out and ravelling so that once when she leaned over I realized I could see the separate bones clearly under the skin in her shoulder. What do you even say? I tried to talk to her about exercise. There are better ways of controlling your body than — it’s not like I don’t know, after all those years at skating meets. I’d see people coming out of the bathrooms. It made me feel sick. Desolation eating away at them so hard. 

And there was the boy with the glory of braids down his back who showed me a sphinx moth on the cabin window screen with rose and red and black diamonds on the wings. And the girl who came out late one night when I was on the cabin porch and took me away from texting to you … she’d hardly said two words together all that week, but she heard me listening to Lady Bey on my ear buds, and once she started talking it was like a river in snow melt. She has dark hair almost as short as Lardo’s but long enough to curl on top and a tattoo high on her back, abstract and vivid in red and blue and dusky purple. She said the design came from a Haitian artist, and his school of artists would look each other in the eyes, really concentrate, and say _bon soleil,_ and it’s French for _the sunshine in you._ I saved that up to tell you. I told her how my vlog started. She made me a playlist of konpa and rap Creole. I’m not sure she ever leaves her room when she’s home. Her step-dad wants to blot her out of existence. And he drinks.

And damn it, some of my kids are barely 12. These people had no idea. None.

Which I knew. I got the burgers anchored on a table. You picked up the one that fell onto the grass as though it hadn’t happened and reached for the mustard. I concentrated on the taste of Old Brown Dog ale. My uncle had moved on to “that college up there, with all you varsi- _ty_ athletes. Must be plenty to go round.”

He eyed you up and down. 

"Guess you know about that.”

You swallowed a bite of burger and said in perfect Canadian deadpan, “No more than Eric.” Beat. “We practice a lot.” And I almost lost my beer.

The assistant coach, who can't take a hint caramelized in sugar and covered in chocolate, tried to aw-come-on you, and you gave him a long narrow-eyed look —

“We're on the same team, eh?”

— and went on to talk about the Yale game and how I made the first line as a Freshman. While I was still choking. 

It went on, of course. A few rounds later my uncles were asking how useful I am a scrum; you said _refill on the beer?_ and steered me toward the house. As you closed the door behind me, your fingers hovered on the nape of my neck. I could feel my heart knock.

My mama’s in the kitchen, holding court with this season’s football moms and keeping an eye on the cousins, and you asked her if we could take a breather for a few minutes. Her eyes went to mine, and for a moment she looked the way she used to when she watched me head out onto the ice. She said _y’all go on. Your uncles will start with the lights in half an hour or so._ People were sitting on the stairs, clustered in the hallway, sprawling on the sofa. You put a hand on my shoulder and drew me out the front door.

But where do you go for privacy? Houses share lawns 10 feet wide. Bottle rockets were going off in the next door driveway. Fire crackers sizzled in the road, and kids were running with water balloons and super soakers and sparklers. We walked along the shoulder. The grass is stiff as a bristle brush around here, and the street lights flood the curb. I don’t know who was following who. 

Every other house was firing off Roman candles. Between bangs you moved close to me, close enough to brush shoulders, opening and closing your hand as you looked down. 

“That guy’s a jerk.”

I shrugged. “He’s known me my whole life.” 

Your hand touched mine, fumbled and gripped. Your hand warm and firm and your eyes in shadow …

You said, “How are you smiling?”

“I’m picturing him on the ice. In a Johnny Weir leotard and face paint. With Lady Gaga on the speakers.”

You raised your eyebrows slowly, and then I melted because you got it.

“Poker Face?”

“ _Chyeah._ ”

That exhibition skate may have singlehandedly gotten me through when I had to give up on testing to compete in seniors. Johnny has had his troubles with quads too. You looked down at me, not smiling back.

“It’s still crap.”

I could feel the judder, deep in. You’re so right. But. “That was nothing.” 

“It was not. You worked fucking hard.”

You’re turning me liquid, the way you’re trying to put yourself between me and that bull — and make my sport count. But you didn’t know.

“That’s how people are here. They don’t mean anything. And that’s it’s own problem. But that’s not the hard stuff. It’s when people want to hurt. When they’ve got you pinned down and you know they want what’s coming. That’s when it gets bad.”

I felt the nausea building. I was holding your hand so hard I thought it would hurt even you. You made a fist and let me squeeze down, leaning against you. 

You said, “What happened? _Bitty_.”

“There’s a reason I’m scared of checking. It’s not physical pain. You know how often figure skaters hit the ice? How often I competed on injuries?”

 _Don’t think of the set of a man’s body coming at me. I’m anchored to your hand, and the street smells of gunpowder._

I said, “It’s the way they want the damage.”

Your free hand came up to my shoulder. I could feel you holding on to the silence. Gentle, ready to draw back, not wanting to. Your hands took my weight.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, and I tried to tell you. About the first high school. About the locker room and the supply closet and all the times. Being fast doesn’t matter when there’s nowhere to run. The words don’t matter now, or the blood, or the bodies crowding or the pain. It was the satisfaction behind all that. It was like lust. It left you sick and stinking and turned inside out on yourself, and there was nothing to do but walk in again the day after. Knowing it would happen again.

I was swaying. Everything was dark under the street lights. You were standing close, close, and you said my name softly, over and over, until I could look up into your face. 

You looked — shattered worse than the night that sportscaster ripped open your career. Worse than the night Kent Parson walked off down the hall. You had hollows under your cheekbones, and your eyes sunk in deep.

You said, “You brought that to Samwell. And I yelled at you. That makes me such a self-centered bastard.” You had me by both shoulders now, your voice aching. “If I’m not that guy anymore, you know it’s because of you.”

“God — you never were near that — don’t you hear what I’m saying?” 

My arms were around your neck, my hands in your hair and between your shoulders, drawing you down to me.

We were in the shadow of the scraggly pine trees on the corner, me on the curb and you in the road, and you were holding me hard, leaning into me, the way I’d wanted for weeks. Months. The air was full of the torn-cloth fizz of fireworks, chysanthemums and peonies down the road.

I said, “you’re the best part of my life.”

*

Later that night when the house finally quieted, we were in my room, your empty sleeping bag unrolled on the floor. When I came in, in boxer-and-t-shirt pajamas, you were already in my bed. I rolled in beside you and up against you. Lying alongside a boy in cotton draw-string pants. Turning my head into the hollow of your shoulder. I didn’t know the universe contained that movement. How can it all seem so simple now? 

You cupped my head in your hands.

“When you did that jump at the shinny, I couldn’t breathe. For the rest of practice.” And when you could talk again, you said, “I want to see you skate. I want to see you in a shirt with spangles on it.” 

Mama called through the door to say we shouldn’t stay up talking too late. She just wanted us up in time for church in the morning. I didn’t tell her that was not going to be a problem. Sleep was irrelevant. But we did stop talking.

**Author's Note:**

> Props to Sanj for helping me bedazzle — for a top-class beta and unrivaled pop cultural knowledge (I am totally a Jack when it comes to music) — and to Kouredios for introducing me to Johnny Weir's "Poker Face" skate awhile ago!


End file.
